


Things You Said

by writellings



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Boys In Love, Drabble Series, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Romance, iwaoi - Freeform, iwaoi drabble series, small promtps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-12-25 11:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writellings/pseuds/writellings
Summary: Even after a hundred times of doing this, Hajime never got used to the way Tooru’s entire body stiffens in pain. He never got accustomed to Tooru’s tears falling onto his fingertips. He never learned to breathe.A series of unrelated drabbles focusing on Hajime and Tooru's relationship.





	1. At 1 A.M.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Tumblr, and because they're drabbles, they were meant only for Tumblr. Due to circumstances I decided to post them here as well, for storage purposes. The stories range from just a couple hundred words to a couple thousand, but they are drabbles, so none of them will be too long. I will try to update this as regularly as I can, hopefully a few times a week - so enjoy!

The dark is somehow thicker and heavier in Hajime’s room.

Maybe it’s because of the lack of glowing stars and planets sprawled across the ceiling, or the width of Hajime’s paltry window in comparison to the glass door leading to a narrow balcony in Tooru’s room. The moonlight spills across the floor just enough for Tooru to be able to see Hajime’s frame clearly.

He likes the way it gives him a false sense of peace after a nightmare forces him awake. He likes how Hajime’s bed is large enough for both of them to fit in it comfortably, yet so small that Tooru has to drape his legs around Hajime’s waist. He likes the way the carpet under Hajime’s bed tickles his bare feet in the morning and how he always wakes up in Hajime’s arms, even though they didn’t fall asleep that way.

When Tooru is kept awake by horrors he can’t physically grasp and ache that shoots through his body like lightning, Hajime is there to wipe away his tears and push the hair out of his face.

“Hajime?” Tooru whispers. His voice rings around him in the stillness of the room. He shifts, pressing his chin into Hajime’s chest and looking up at him through his lashes. “Are you awake?”

Hajime grunts, pressing his fingers to his eyes. “I am now,” he says.

Tooru smiles a little despite himself; he knows that Hajime isn’t really mad because this isn’t the first time that Tooru woke him up like this, and it isn’t the first time he turned to wrap his arms around Tooru’s torso and press a kiss to his temple.

“I need to tell you something,” Tooru mumbles.

He can feel Hajime’s heart beating against his face and he can feel the warmth radiating from Hajime’s body, enveloping him. They’re wrapped in three blankets, limbs tangled together and bodies flushed together.

“What?” Haime breathes.

“I love you,” now, Tooru feels Hajime’s lips go up at the edges and he feels Hajime’s hand going through his hair and he feels him press soft kisses along his neck.

And, finally, he feels safe.

“I love you, too.”


	2. Through Gritted Teeth

_“Don’t,”_ Tooru hisses, teeth gritted against the pain.

Hajime’s hands ghost over his leg, leaving marks of fingertips on the swollen skin there. He’s frowning, pretending to be angry like a child who didn’t get their way. But underneath the scowls and the furrowed brows and the muttered curses, Hajime is scared  _as hell_ – all dark black and bruised around the edges. Because Tooru keeps overworking himself, and he keeps saying  _I’m fine, don’t worry_ and  _It’s nothing_ and all the other lies that Hajime sees through like tainted glass.

Tooru looks at him through thick tears. “Don’t,” his voice is painted with hurt and panic.

“I’ll just wrap it up,” Hajime says. Somehow, his voice isn’t shaking and his vision isn’t melting into a blur of Tooru’s face and Tooru’s tears and his own hands, bringing even more pain to Tooru’s injured leg. He inhales, counts the beats of his heart.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

Time seems to stop as Hajime yanks on Tooru’s leg, hard, bringing his knee back into place. Tooru’s scream is drowned out by the ringing in Hajime’s ears. He pulls on the tape he’s been holding and wraps it around Tooru’s knee before Tooru pulls his knee pad up and over the bulge.

Even after a hundred times of doing this, Hajime never got used to the way Tooru’s entire body stiffens in pain. He never got accustomed to Tooru’s tears falling onto his fingertips. He never learned to breathe.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru’s hand on his shoulder is light and gentle that Hajime barely notices it’s there.

He looks up; Tooru’s face is ghastly pale and covered in sweat and tears and loose hair. His mouth is shut, lips pulled tightly into a crude line, breath held back in his tired lungs. “Yeah,” Hajime breathes, before Tooru can say  _Thank you,_ because he doesn’t need to say it. Not anymore.

He can almost  _hear_ Tooru swallow back a lump around the dryness in his throat. Hajime can feel Tooru’s fingers shake a little inside his palm, but he doesn’t know when he took Tooru’s hand in his own. Tooru’s face is only inches away from his; their breaths melt into each other until they align. When Tooru leans down, just a little bit, their lips touch and Hajime’s tongue slips past the edge of his mouth and slides against Tooru’s. They stay like this until Hajime remembers how to breathe again, and Tooru falls into his embrace like he was made to be there.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

_Forever._


	3. Too Quietly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short but sweet (:

They call it “freezing”; it happens to him on the court, once, and he can’t move, can’t unglue his eyes from the edge of the gym where the ball is falling. When the whistle goes off and the other team starts cheering, he still doesn’t move, can’t will his legs to follow him to the sidelines. It’s only after Hajime pulls him up by his shoulders, half-dragging him to line up, that Tooru realizes he’s shaking. The knowledge does nothing to stop his muscles from dragging him down, and his fingers press into the flesh of his palm until his knuckles turn white and his head starts to spin.

He’s only partly aware of his surroundings; his teammates next to him, their trembling hands mirroring his own emotions; Hajime’s fingertips gentle against the back of his shirt, pressing lightly into the small of his back, like he’s trying to keep him from falling.

After everyone has already gone, and it feels like it’s been hours since they were in that gym, on that podium, with the ball against their fingertips and then it was all over in less than a second, Tooru let’s himself breath again. Hajime walks him home that night and he refuses to go, even after Tooru pushes against him to leave, yells and spits out words he knows he would normally regret. He might tomorrow. But Hajime is firm as a rock next to him, squeezing his arms tight as he pulls him close.

“It’s alright,” with Hajime’s words tickling his skin, Tooru’s tears spill over between them, and his next breath is Hajime’s name choked in a sob he doesn’t care to silence.

They don’t talk for hours after – Hajime’s legs are trapped under Tooru’s body, his fist curled firmly into the front of Tooru’s shirt as he tries to hold him steady, tries to stop him shaking and trembling and falling apart so gracelessly that Hajime barely recognizes him. When Hajime’s body goes numb with the weight above him, he doesn’t say anything, because he’s so used to Tooru being his burden that he would gladly drown under him if it meant healing him.

“I’m sorry,” Tooru speaks the words so softly he almost convinces himself he imagined saying them at all.

But Hajime is pulling his shirt, shifting, hugging, tugging him closer. And, like a mantra burned into his skin with ink, he says;

“It’s okay. I’m here,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have a request about what you want to see with these stories [here](http://mikaisabottom.tumblr.com/post/132712685361/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a) is the list of all the propmts. Some of them I've already written, but I would love ideas about what to do with the rest if you have any (:


	4. Under the Stars and in the Grass

Hajime plucks the grass next to Tooru's head. It's tall, almost reaching past their ears if they lay down in it, and the dew lingers on their skin well after they get up. Tooru is next to him, sprawled on his stomach, sure to ruin that ugly alien sweater he's wearing.

 “What’s that one?” Hajime asks, pointing his finger to the sky. The moon hangs heavily above them, illuminating their faces in a way that makes him want to look away from Tooru. It’s him who wanted to come here, wanted to watch the stars and show Hajime his favorite constellations.   
  
“Cygnus,” Tooru’s words fall effortlessly from his lips, like he’s prepared all the answers to all the questions Hajime doesn’t know he wants to ask. He looks up at the cross-like line of stars in the sky. He always wondered how Tooru found constellations as easily as he did, when Hajime could never, even if he knew what to look for. “And that over there’s Lyra,” Tooru’s finger extends toward something above him, and Hajime squints, as if that could help him see through Tooru’s eyes.

“I don’t see anything,” he says.

“That lopsided square – look,” Tooru moves, then, closer to Hajime. They sit up and Tooru takes Hajime’s wrist between his fingers – cold, wet – and points them toward the sky, drawing out the lines in a fluid motion. “See? It looks like it has a tail at the end, and that last star is called Vega,”

Hajime looks, for the first time seeing what Tooru does. The star shines brighter than all the others put together, and Hajime wonders for a second if it will explode, shower them in brightness and dust as it falls to the ground. He swallows the awe back and looks over at his friend. His sweater is soaked, and he must be cold but he doesn’t seem to care.

“How come it’s brighter than all the others?” he wonders if the question is a stupid one, if it has an obvious answer that he should somehow know without being told. The way Tooru looks at him makes his lungs burn, and his throat goes dry and there’s nothing left in his mouth to swallow.

“It’s one of the brightest stars in the sky,” Tooru says, like that’s any kind of explanation. He goes silent for a moment, then looks at Hajime; those eyes burn a hole in his heart and he almost wants to lean in to taste Tooru’s lips. “It’s my favorite one.”

Hajime wants to ask why, but it seems obvious to him; the star shines as bright as Tooru wishes he could, but no matter what he does he always gets overshadowed by genius setters he can’t compete with. It makes him angry at time, that Tooru can’t see himself the way Hajime sees him, that he can’t admit how strong he is, how powerful and unique and –

“Beautiful,” Hajime whispers, to himself mostly, but Tooru turns his head. “You’re beautiful, Oikawa. Just like that star. Don’t think otherwise, alright?”

Tooru seems surprised, and then shocked, and then almost happy. He nods, doesn’t say anything, but Hajime knows that he’s grateful. He can feel his _thank you_ in the way Tooru sits closer to him and puts his head down on Hajime’s shoulder, and in the way their fingertips brush up against each other when Tooru takes his hand.

It doesn’t matter if Tooru doesn’t think he’s good enough, because Hajime would be happy to remind him of it every day.


	5. Over the Phone

Hajime listens to the silence on the other end of the line, holding his breath in, because he is too scared to disrupt the peace of this moment.

The phone rings once, twice, and on the third ring Hajime is greeted with Tooru’s gentle “hello”. His voice is stuck in his throat, but he knows that Tooru has caller I.D., so not saying anything for a while is okay. Tooru will wait; they’ve always waited for each other.

“Iwa-chan?” it must have been longer than Hajime thought, because Tooru sounds worried, a little – maybe. Or Hajime is just really paranoid.

“Huh,” he answers, breathless. He feels like there is plaster in his teeth and his jaw is heavy with it. Hajime swallows dryly, willing his tongue to untangle and come up with words to say. Except there’s nothing he  _can_ say because –

Well.

“Hajime, is everything alright?” Tooru’s voice sounds weird and distorted over the phone. Hajime never noticed it before, how his voice is deeper and more insecure without the façade he puts on when faced with someone in person.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Hajime manages to push the words past his lips. They taste bitter and wrong, and he wonders if this is what lies taste like. “Just wanted to say  _‘hi’_ ”

He can almost picture Tooru raising a suspicious brow at him. “That was an unusually long pause for just a ‘ _hi’,”_  he says. He doesn’t sound judgmental or assuming, just  _genuine._ Like he would if they were sitting on Hajime’s front porch, discussing volleyball as the setting sun showered them in pink and red gradients. Hajime is glad for it, in a way.

“Well, I guess there  _is_ something I want to tell you, but…” Hajime stops, swallowing his words. “I don’t know what to say, exactly…”

Tooru humsquietly, as if contemplating Hajime’s unspoken words. “If you don’t want to tell me – whatever it is you need to talk about – you don’t have to do it now. We can – “

“I’m gay,” Hajime blurts, before he can convince himself not to, and his heart is in his throat, suffocating him.

There’s a long pause where Hajime starts to think that Tooru hung up on him, only there was no sound to indicate the line going dead. Or maybe –  _maybe_ Tooru doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t  _want_ to say anything, because he is so  _disgusted –_

“So… That’s it?” Tooru draws his words out, finally, after what seems like eons of time have passed.

“Well, yeah,” Hajime catches himself biting at the skin around his nails.

“Why were you so nervous about that?” because he can’t see his face, Hajime listens closely to Tooru’s words, trying to find some kind of double meaning or judging tone behind them.

“Because,” he sighs. “I thought – that – you know, you would – I don’t know, think less of me, I guess,” he’s sweating, or maybe something else, and his voice is a little higher than he thinks it should be.

“Hajime, I would  _never_ think less of you over something like this. Or at all,” Tooru says. “We’re best friends, aren’t we? I don’t care if you’re gay or straight, or whatever, as long as you’ll still be my Iwa-chan.”

Now, Hajime is definitely  _not_ sweating and there’s  _definitely_ not a huge lump of something in his throat, and Oikawa Tooru is most definitely  _not_ the greatest best friend in the entire world.

Or maybe he is, and maybe Hajime loves him for it.

“I’ll always be your Iwa-chan.”


	6. When You Were Crying

There’s a cigarette between Hajime’s fingers and a furrow in his brow when Tooru comes to his house.

The ace is sitting under an old oak tree that had been growing and growing there in the garden ever since they were little kids, its presence burned into Tooru’s childhood memories. Tooru knows by now that when Hajime has  _that_ look – when his lips are pulled together into a thin, stubborn line, when his eyes are only half-open, shying away from the smoke that envelops him – he should just leave him be.

Except he never does.

Instead, he inches closer with a heavy sigh on his lips, and puts his arms around Hajime’s neck. That’s when the words come flying at him; they sting, and they bruise him more than he thought anything Hajime said could. It feels surreal to hear them spill from Hajime’s lips, rolling off his tongue like thunder in the sky. Hajime’s breathe smells of tobacco and Tooru can feel his heart break and stop beating. Maybe because this time, Hajime means it. This time, it’s surely over, Tooru finally pushed Hajime over the edge and away from himself.

When Hajime calls him trash, Tooru feels his chest being stabbed by freshly-sharpened daggers.

When he calls him an idiot, Tooru feels an all too familiar sting behind his eyes – so much like what he felt when he was a child and didn’t get his way.

When Hajime demands to be left alone, when he physically pushes Tooru away from himself, dark falls over Tooru’s eyes and he holds his breath until he gets home.

                                              

* * *

 

 

It feels like hours passed when Tooru hears a soft knock press against the door.

He blinks; the heavy, bitter feeling of tears still echoes on his face, burning his skin. Everything around him is too dark and too quiet, and then there’s another knock on the door, quicker and heavier than it was before. Tooru fights between the need to say “go away” to whoever it is on the other side of the door, and to stay quiet, because maybe they’ll  _actually_ go away. In the end, he settles with “Who is it?”

It’s Hajime, of course. The realization washes over him as though he wasn’t expecting it. Then; “Go away,” he spits. The words are muttered into his folded arms, muffled and too quiet too hear. He wonders if Hajime really left, or if he even heard him at all.

“Come on, Shittikawa,” Hajime’s faint voice reaches Tooru’s ears like a whisper in a storm. “I’m sorry,”

And Tooru doesn’t say anything – because he wants Hajime to think he doesn’t care, because he wants Hajime to feel how he felt; broken and hopeless and helpless. He doesn’t say anything, because if he did, his cracking voice would give away his tears. So he just sits on the floor with his back pressed firmly against the door frame. He’s clutching a volleyball plushy that Hajime got for his tenth birthday. Somehow, over the years of sleepovers and movie marathons that lasted until dawn, it ended up on Tooru’s bed, among all of his pillows and blankets. And Hajime never asked for it back.

“Oikawa, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I – I was having a bad day, okay? Aren’t I entitled to one of those every now and then?” it sounds like Hajime crouched down, or maybe he sat on the floor and pressed his back against the door, too. “Can you just, please stop sulking?”

“I’m not sulking,” Tooru replies. The fear of Hajime knowing that he made him cry vanishes with the words. “I’m genuinely concerned that you hate me, and that you meant every word that you said. I’m concerned – I’m  _scared_  – that our friendship is really over this time, that I finally drove you away. And that you won’t forgive me; it’s not like I deserve it anyway.”

Tooru’s tears spill over the edge of his eyes; hot and burning, they roll down his face quickly and unstopping, like a reminder of how long he’d been holding them in.

“Oikawa, you – “

“I’ve always been selfish, Hajime.” Tooru stutters. A weight lifts from his chest as he speaks. “I’ve always wanted you all to myself – to be your only person. I wanted to be the only person who could drag you out your darkness, like you’ve always been for me, and now – now I can’t tell if it was too much or not enough.” His voice dies down and he sits still in the suffocating silence, listening for Hajime’s breathing to make sure if he’s still there. The only sound in the empty room is the clock ticking away at the wall; Tooru counts the seconds.

“You’re so stupid, Shittikawa,” Hajime says, after 53 ticks. “Do you really think that? Do you really  _think,_ that after sixteen fucking years of friendship, I would just throw you away like you’re nothing to me? And all because of a stupid argument?” Tooru listens, quiet, as Hajime’s voice grows louder with anger or frustration, or desperation. “You’re – you’re my  _everything._ We’ve been together through  _so much_ – all those scrapes and burns and falls when we were kids, middle school and high school, and god knows we’ll probably follow each other to college, too, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can’t imagine my life without your shitty ass in it – I don’t want to.”

Oikawa allows Hajime’s words to hang between them – the wall that separates them suddenly seems too thick, too  _there,_ so Tooru moves away from the door. He doesn’t look, but he can hear the creak of the door as Hajime carefully pushes it open and closed; he doesn’t look, but he feels his hands go empty as the plush ball is taken away from him, and he feels himself become warmer as Hajime presses him to his chest. Tooru doesn’t look, but he can feel Hajime’s arms tighten around him as he pulls him into his lap. And he hears himself whisper:

“I’m sorry.”

Tooru’s tears continue to fall silently, but neither of them comment on it. They stay like this for a long time; Hajime holds him through the burst of hiccups and “I’m sorry’s”. Later, when Tooru’s breath evens out in sleep, Hajime holds him, still, and presses a gentle kiss to his lips.

“It’s okay,” he says into the un-answering silence.


End file.
